With reports of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Indian National Congress (INC) merger doing rounds, NCP chief Sharad Pawar has dismissed any such possibility. Earlier this week, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Pawar had met over an hour-long meeting. Speculation was rife that Pawar and Gandhi had initiated talks for NCP’s merger in the Congress to aid the latter to get Leader of Opposition (LoP) post in the Lok Sabha.
The Congress was reduced to 52 seats this general election which is not enough to get the LoP post. A party has to get 10 per cent of the total seats in the lower house of Parliament for LoP portfolio. This means a party should have won at least 55 out of the 543 seats in Lok Sabha. Congress is three seats short to get the post.
Reports now suggest that despite NCP’s support to Congress as a constituent of the UPA, the Congress won’t get the LoP post. This once again brings in merger speculation which the Congress reportedly offered to NCP. However, Sharad Pawar, on the other hand, has outrightly rubbished such reports saying the meeting between him and Rahul Gandhi was an extensive analysis of the Lok Sabha election and that there was no discussion on the merger between the two parties.
Meanwhile, the NCP has also suggested EVM tampering playing a crucial role in Lok Sabha 2019 result. It has apparently become the first party to raise the EVM tampering issue playing a spoilsport for other parties that bagged less number of seats, besides BJP, that won with an impressive majority.
In the 2019 elections, the NCP contested from 22 seats in Maharashtra but won just 4. It won one more seat from Lakshadweep. The party won from Baramati (Supriya Sule), Raigad (Sunil Tatkare), Satara (Udayanraje Bhonsle), Shirur (Amol Kolhe) and Lakshadweep (Mohammed Faizal) Lok Sabha seats.
